It is hard to think of a leading critic under fifty. There is no new generation in sight. This is unprecedented. Billington was barely thirty when he began at The Guardian, older than Nightingale when he started at The Statesman. Much is made of the fact that Tynan took over at The Observer when he was 27, but Hobson was only 31 when he began as a theatre critic and James Agate was 30 when he began at The Guardian. The great critics, in short, always began before they were forty. Who are their equivalents today? Where are the new, young voices in theatre criticism? – The Critic
Blog
Meme Me – How Memes Work
The chaotic creativity of remixed internet memes and the new linguistic structures that rapidly evolve from them allow us to express certain states of mind and have others immediately get it and respond in kind. This has been called an “asynchronous, massively multi-person conversation.” – JSTOR
The Trump Book Industry
Taken en masse, the books paint a damning portrait of the 45th president of the United States. But the sheer volume of unflattering material they contain can have the paradoxical danger of blunting their collective impact. After the 10th time you read about Mr. Trump’s short attention span, your own attention is in danger of wandering. – The New York Times
What I Learned From The Worst-Reviewed Novel Ever
In a book called Weird Wisconsin: Your Travel Guide to Wisconsin’s Local Legends, Burrows’s name was listed under a chapter called “The Worst Novel Ever Published in the English Language.” Maddeningly, the Google Books preview would not reveal the offending passage, but soon I located a Washington Post article that explained the whole entanglement. – The New Republic
Tourist Fesses Up To Breaking Toes Off Canova Sculpture
The tourist, on a trip to celebrate his 50th birthday, was visiting an art museum in northern Italy last week when he posed with the statue of a reclining Pauline Bonaparte. Her husband had commissioned the seminude sculpture by the Italian artist Antonio Canova in the early 19th century. It is known as Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix. What happened next might be attributable to the reckless exuberance that big birthdays often bring. – The New York Times
Where’s Classical Music Performance Headed Post-COVID? Here Are Some Clues
Having listened to recent online offerings from North America and Europe (where concerts are carefully starting to move back into halls), David Patrick Stearns predicts that “innovation and experimentation will continue to be part of the package …, but in a less reckless form than in the past, and with a strong streak of social responsibility. Performances will be more intense. Decorative elements will be at a minimum. The pursuit of artistic truth could easily translate into a lack of polish. And that will be okay — we’ve had plenty of polish in recent decades.” – WQXR (New York City)
Frank Gehry’s New Eisenhower Memorial In DC – Last Of The “Great Men” Memorials?
Over the past decade, and at almost every step — from the design competition to the groundbreaking in 2017 — the project was dogged by controversy, subject to congressional hearings and, at one point, effectively defunded by the government. – Washington Post
Of Experts And The Willingness To Be Wrong
When experts and pundits can’t or won’t say ‘I don’t know’, the consequences can be dire. In the short term, bad advice leads to bad decisions. In the context of admitting uncertainty about challenging questions, there are two ways this can happen. These are particularly clear and salient in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. – Aeon
Helen Jones Woods, Trombonist With Groundbreaking All-Women Jazz Band, Dead Of COVID At 96
“In addition to their pioneering role as women on the jazz circuit, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm were an interracial band in the era of Jim Crow. Their extensive itinerary through the South, where they traveled by sleeper bus, reportedly inspired jazz piano giant Earl Hines to call them ‘the first Freedom Riders.’ They also toured Europe, playing in occupied Germany for American soldiers — both white and Black, though not at the same time.” (After the band broke up in 1949, Woods, who was biracial, joined the Omaha Symphony — and was fired after her first concert when management saw her Black father pick her up.) – WBGO (Newark, NJ)
Instead Of Canceling Its Next Production When COVID Hit, This Theater Completely Reimagined It
Aleshea Harris’s Is God Is was the last show of the season at the
Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, and when the shutdown came, there was still time to figure something out. “We then went through at least four different iterations of what the production could be,” said managing director Leigh Goldenberg, “so that we could still tell the story, share the art and employ the folks involved.” The key problem was that what most theaters were doing (reading plays on Zoom) would not work with this script. So the Wilma folks got a better idea. – NPR